Kendall Square

It's difficult to comprehend how much of the future is created in these parts. Between web behemoths like Google and Microsoft, plus a super-dense cluster of biotech companies, not to mention the festering research going on at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - this is, simply put, a brainy playground for scientific progress. Additionally, architecture fans can geek out on MIT's iconic structures (Frank Gehry's tangle-of-angles Stata Center, Eero Saarinen's sinuous chapel, Fumihiko Maki's see-through Media Lab), while culture nerds can run amok through a fantastic display of contemporary art, crit-theory text, or independent film. Stay for dinner? Kendall's restaurant scene continues to heat up, without any hint of stopping.kendallsq.org